Record rental prices - 11 March 2020

Rental price statistics for February 2020, just released, show an all-time highest average national rental price of $480 per week. This compares with $460 in February 2019 and $440 in February 2018.

“Unfortunately, these rental price increases are nothing new” says Sharon Cullwick, newly appointed Executive Office of the NZ Property Investors’ Federation (NZPIF). “While we supported rental improvements, such as compulsory insulation and smoke alarms, it was always obvious that the extra costs of these and other new regulations would see rental prices increase.”

“We were accused of scaremongering when pointing this out a few years ago, but the facts show that we were right”, she said

Rental prices have increased by an average 3.9% over the last 12 months and confirm what many tenants have been saying, that rental properties are becoming harder and more expensive to find.

Christchurch was the only area to record a negative price increase of around half a percent. Price increases were also moderate in most parts of Auckland and Central Wellington.

Dunedin and Palmerston North recorded the highest increases at 12.9% and 10.7% respectively.

Decisions need to be made that encourage the provision of more rental properties rather than introducing a Residential Tenancies Bill with changes which will make providing rental properties more expensive and will make it harder to manage poorly performing tenants.

Annual rental price growth to February 2020

Dunedin

12.90%

Palmerston North

10.70%

Invercargill

9.90%

Hutt Valley

9.20%

Napier

9.00%

Upper Hutt

8.60%

Nelson

8.30%

Porirua

6.20%

Hamilton

5.0%

Tauranga

4.4%

Manukau

3.7%

Waitakere

3.4%

Wellington

3.3%

North Shore

2.60%

Auckland

1.50%

Papakura

0.00%

Christchurch

-0.40%

NZ Total

3.90%

About NZPIF

The New Zealand Property Investors’ Federation represents 7000 property owners and is responsible for educating and supporting landlords to ensure New Zealanders have access to high quality rental properties.